


Anything the same

by Claudia_flies



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Issues, Pining while fucking, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:35:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claudia_flies/pseuds/Claudia_flies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He opens his eyes to Steve’s wide and surprised ones, looking down on him. His hold on Bucky’s wrists has gone slack, and as quickly as the pleasure had overtaken him, dread takes its place. He scrambles out of Steve’s hold and off the mat, mumbling I’m sorrys as he goes.</i>
</p><p>Or: where Bucky doesn’t remember. And they fuck. A lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything the same

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Anything the same](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11733729) by [Ortalle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ortalle/pseuds/Ortalle)



> Kind of sister fic to [Home isn’t a Place](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6236878). It’s not the corresponding POV or even the same narrative, but deals with similar themes.
> 
> Title from a quote by Neil Gaiman from _The Ocean at the End of the Lane_  
>  “Different people remember things differently, and you'll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.”

The feeling rushes through him and he doesn’t recognize it. His dick swells and throbs between his legs and before he even realizes, Bucky is arching against Steve’s rock solid thigh wedged between his legs. Once, twice, three times is all it takes until he is spilling in his shorts, wet and sticky, and his legs clamped around Steve’s thigh like a vice. The pleasure is almost like pain, but then not like it at all. It takes over his body and for a brief moment Bucky can’t remember anything, feel anything except bliss. 

It doesn’t last long. He opens his eyes to Steve’s wide and surprised ones, looking down on him. His hold on Bucky’s wrists has gone slack, and as quickly as the pleasure had overtaken him, dread takes its place. He scrambles out of Steve’s hold and off the mat, mumbling _I’m sorrys_ as he goes. He doesn’t look back or stop, even when Steve shouts.

“Bucky, wait!”

Just hobbles to the changing rooms, semen running down his leg, still warm and wet. He locks the door and wedges a chair under the handle just in case. He strips, looking at the mess in his shorts with disgust, and turns the shower on, leaving the water running cold. As soon as the cold spray hits his skin Bucky crouches in the corner, his face into the tiles. 

He has been very bad.

He ignores Steve shouting his name and the jangle of the door handle, scrape of the chair legs against the floor. He’s not under the spray long, maybe a minute when there is a crash. The chair hitting the opposite wall and the telltale sound of feet slapping against the tiled floor of the shower area.

“Bucky, oh Buck. Jesus, the water’s freezing.”

The temperature changes, the water hitting his back is now scalding hot, the way both him and Steve like. He doesn’t look at Steve when he sits on the floor of the shower cubicle next to him, still fully clothed. There is a warm hand on his shoulder, it touches him just lightly, ready to be shook off. Bucky doesn’t shake it off.

“Hey buddy, you didn’t gotta run off like that.”

Steve sometimes goes all old Brooklyn, especially when talking to Bucky. Steve’s touch becomes surer, rubbing the ball of his flesh shoulder. Bucky sighs, he wants to lean into the contact but he’s too afraid.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey, none of that. You didn’t do anything wrong, I was just surprised is all.”

The hot water is easing the tension in Bucky, and Steve’s gentle words and warm hand on his back help too. Steve’s words are very soft when he speaks again, his hand moving slowly over the skin of Bucky’s shoulder.

“I think that maybe it’s been a really long time since you touched someone and they touched you back. And what happened is completely normal.”

Bucky doesn’t move but he lets the words run over him. Steve’s not angry. He hasn’t been bad. He looks up through the curtain of his wet hair and Steve’s face is open and sincere. 

“Come on, buddy, let’s just have a shower and then head up for movie night?”

Steve gets up from the floor, his clothes are soaked through, plastered to his skin. He pulls Bucky to his feet and under the spray of the shower proper.

“I’ll be right next door, okay?”

Bucky nods mechanically. He really wants Steve to stay. To strip so that Bucky can touch him all over, but he understands that it would be asking too much so he doesn’t. 

Steve disappears from the shower cubicle and Bucky can hear the wet splat of his clothing hitting the floor and the shower starting in the next one over.

He stands under the hot spray of water and tries to sort out what happened in his head. The pleasure and the release and the comfort of Steve’s closeness. The sparring had been nice. To use the arm, to use the skills he has, but also to have the trust that he would not hurt anyone. That no one would hurt him. 

Steve’s bright smile, his praise, the joy on his face to be able to play with someone of equal strength. 

The feeling of being held down, of being held, of being safe. Having touch on his body that is kind. 

The heat of Steve’s body, the graceful way he moves.

 _Being safe_.

Bucky shakes his head and washes. The languid feeling stays with him even after he has dressed and is standing in the elevator with Steve as if nothing has happened.

They go to the movie night as normal. Steve puts his arm around Bucky’s shoulder when they sit on the couch. The blanket is warm around his body and Steve’s arm is comforting over his shoulders, grounding. The others don’t seem to notice anything amiss so he lets it stay there.

Afterwards, Bucky avoids sparring for a few days, coming up with some creative excuses to avoid the gym, but eventually they run out and Steve’s cajoling gets the better of him. 

There is no one else at the gym which he is grateful for.

Steve smiles, hopeful and happy and Bucky wonders if he remembers what happened last time. 

Sparring with Steve is surprisingly easy as if he slipping into a worn pair of shoes that he can’t remember ever having owned. Bucky knows that he can get away easily, knows that he can dodge and twist. He doesn’t. Steve has him pinned again. 

The look in his eyes is a question and Bucky can feel him deliberately shifting, his thigh moving between Bucky’s legs. Bucky knows he’s hard, can recognize the feeling now. Hard and aching and the press of Steve’s thigh is so, so good. There is still the question in his eyes until Bucky bites his lip and nods. 

Steve’s free hand moves to his hip, cradling the bone, thumb circling the skin right above the waistband of his shorts. Encouraging Bucky to move. 

It’s easier, this time, not so overwhelming, but it still only takes a few thrusts against Steve’s leg for the toe-curling pleasure to rush through his body, his cock pulsing wetly in his shorts. Steve’s thumb runs a few more lazy circles on his hip before he lets go of Bucky’s wrists and rolls off to lie on the mat. 

Steve pats him on the shoulder and then pulls him up. Steve doesn’t join him in the shower and Bucky doesn’t know how to ask him to. He showers alone, listening to Steve in the next cubicle over, imagining Steve’s hands washing him, running over his chest, his hips and down his legs. 

It stays in the gym. A strange part of their workout routine when no one else is around, until one of the Avengers’ movie nights is cancelled. Romanoff and Barton are somewhere in Europe ( _it’s classified_ ) and Tony and Pepper are heading out to dinner. Tony had run through the common room, not an hour earlier shouting:

“Jesus fucking, fuck, anniversary. JARVIS why didn’t you tell me!?”

The AI had remained silent. Bucky thinks that he had been able to sense smug kind of judgment in the dead air. 

So they decide to host a private movie night on their own floor, continuing their Disney marathon with the 1970s Robin Hood as the others usually veto anything from the house of mouse, as Tony likes to call it. 

It’s a good movie. It really is, but Steve is sitting very close by, his thigh pressed against Bucky’s and his fingers distractedly playing with the hair on the base of Bucky’s neck.

It takes just that, the tiny contact of Steve’s fingers on the back of his neck and Bucky is hardening in his pants, and the sweats do nothing to hide his cock. His metal arm whirrs and clicks in embarrassment. The neural links of the arm seemingly unable to handle emotions the winter soldier was not calibrated for. 

He knows the exact moment Steve notices as his fingers still and he shifts. Bucky keeps his eyes resolutely on the screen watching the big bear cross-dressing as a disguise. He doesn’t think that the guise is particularly good or stealthy. 

Steve shifts next to him, pressing closer, his fingers pushing into the hair at the back of Bucky’s neck, fanning it out from the loose knot. Bucky shivers at the contact and spreads his legs almost on instinct. 

Steve flicks towards the screen to pause the singing and dancing animals, and suddenly Bucky finds himself flat on his back on the couch, Steve’s heavy body covering his. The part of his mind that is still thinking chastises him for letting Steve get the drop on him. But it’s a very small part, most of his brain is engaged in following the trail Steve’s fingers are laying over his chest and stomach.

Steve finally gets his hands into Bucky’s briefs, his elegant fingers and wide palm wrapping around Bucky’s leaking cock. 

Bucky mouths the cotton of Steve’s t-shirt, the fabric covering his shoulder and chest. It feels so good, being held close, his body humming in pleasure instead of pain. Everything is new. He has no memory if these kinds of touches. He assumes that someone, at some point, must have touched this body, been kind to it. It seems to know how to respond to Steve’s exploring hands. It knows how to arch and spread its legs and pant and moan and make the noises that Steve seems to like.

Cautiously he moves his hand over Steve’s side, coming to rest on his hip. Bucky can feel that Steve’s hard too, but that’s normal. Rolling around with another body on the couch, it might not be anything to do with Bucky. Steve’ twists his hips, angling slightly towards Bucky’s hand, like an invitation.

“... Can I…?”

Bucky can feel Steve’s smile against his collarbone where his t-shirt has been stretched and pulled down.

“Mmmm… yeah. I’d like that.”

Steve’s cock is hot and hard through his sweatpants. Bucky can feel the size of it, thick and long, the head trying to work itself out from the top of Steve’s pants. Steve shuffles onto his knees, getting some space between their bodies, enough for Bucky to slip his hand inside. Slide his fingers over the coarse hair at the base of Steve’s cock, wrap his hands around the thick base.

Steve moans, broken and breathless. 

Bucky eases the head out from Steve’s pants, teasing the foreskin, sliding it so that the red, slick tip comes visible, rubs the skin over the glands. Steve is so sensitive, beads of slick pre-come slide over Bucky’s fingers as Steve mouths his neck, his lips working over the pulse point, whispering, begging.

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky.”

He keeps his touch light and teasing, partly because he doesn’t know what Steve likes.

“Show me how?”

Steve’s hand comes to rest on his, showing Bucky the speed and pressure he likes, how to twist just right over the tip, how to slide his thumb into the slit at the top to make Steve whine and jerk his hips into Bucky’s grip. 

Steve comes all over their joined fingers and Bucky’s shirt. He wants to rub it into his skin, to claim a piece of Steve for his own, something to keep forever, but before he can, Steve takes their come covered hands and wraps them both around Bucky’s straining cock, slicking him up with Steve’s spunk.

“Show me what you like.”

Steve’s smile is dirty and Bucky does, even as he doesn’t really know what he likes. He’s only had the few times to experiment in the shower to see what the body likes. Steve twists their joined hands over the tip, and it’s all it takes for Bucky to come with a muffled shout, his knees falling open to cradle Steve closer to his body.

Steve holds him, breathing the same air, their heart beats steady and strong against each other. Bucky wants nothing more than to stay here forever. There is nothing else he needs. He can live on this alone.

Bucky knows that he is selfish. After seventy years of torture and brainwashing and killing, he wants to have something kind and gentle and good for himself, and he deserves none of it. He knows that Steve is doing this because he is a good person and he thinks that this is what Bucky needs from him. And Bucky is too selfish to tell him that he doesn’t have to. He just takes. 

He wants these memories of kind touches when in months or years time Steve has found someone for himself and can’t touch Bucky like this anymore. Bucky knows that no one else will want to touch his warzone of a body and freaky metal arm with the kind of reverent gentleness that Steve does.

So he tries to remember the things that Steve likes, and files them away, waiting for a chance to do it again, to show Steve that he can also give something back, that he is not just taking, selfishly.

They fool around on the couch a lot in the evenings, hands in each other's pants, panting against each other’s mouths, but then Steve kisses him. 

It’s just a touch of lips first, sharing breath really. Bucky takes it as an invitation and then they are properly kissing, with tongues and clashing teeth, hungry ravenous sounds as they come all over each other bodies, hands already practiced in what the other likes best. 

Afterwards Steve kisses him for ages, their mouths just sliding across each others. Bucky closes his eyes and revels in the closeness. Their spunk caught between their chests, rubbing into Bucky’s skin.

They use the gym either early morning or late in the evening. The quiet times when they are the least likely to be disturbed, to be observed. It’s not just because he always ends up coming in his pants on the mat, but also because a part of him is still repelled at being watched, of being weighed and measured. He wants to keep the pure joy of fighting Steve just because they want to, because can, a strange sort of play. 

No one will judge him ( _punish him_ ) if he lets Steve win, or if he misses an opening or laughs into the mat when Steve decides to add tickling to his offensive repertoire. But this time, he doesn’t let Steve pin him. 

Easily escaping the holds and locks, never letting Steve grapple him to the ground. Steve gives him a questioning look, but Bucky just smiles. He has a plan. He knows what he wants. In turn, he helps Steve off the mat, but instead of letting go of his hand Bucky pulls him to the changing rooms. A sly smile blooms on Steve’s face at the click of the lock. 

Bucky leads him into the shower, turning on the water, hot and strong. They are both still fully clothed, the wet fabric clinging to flesh. 

The water is warm, but Steve’s body against his is even warmer. 

He is so happy about the kissing, the kissing is his new favourite. He knows that Steve is only doing it because of the accident on the couch, but Bucky is too happy, too greedy to care, he wants to ferret away every opportunity, every memory for safe keeping. He knows it won’t last forever.

Their clothes end up as a heap in the corner of the shower in their eagerness to get each other naked. Bucky lets his fingers run over the flushed peaks of Steve’s nipples, watches as Steve shudders and his eyes droop at the contact. He pinches the peaked flesh between his fingers, rolling and pinching until Steve moans his name, grabs Bucky’s ass for balance.

Steve’s curious fingers rub over his tailbone, fingertips sneaking into the cleft of his ass. Bucky hums against Steve’s chest, against the line of his clavicle, fingers still teasing. 

“You wanna try it?”

Bucky is curious, he has no memory of something like this beyond hazy recollections of crude soldier humour. 

“Yeah.”

Steve pumps a few servings of conditioner from the container attached to the wall into his cupped palm.

It feels slick and strange between his ass cheeks. Steve’s fingers gently circling over the pucker of his asshole. The skin is surprisingly sensitive. Bucky feels exposed, raw in a way that he would panic with anyone but Steve. Instead, he hides his face in Steve’s wet shoulder and pushes his ass into those curious fingers. 

The first press inside is easy and slick, strange, intimate. Steve’s other hand finds its way to Bucky’s dick as the finger in his ass becomes bolder pressing into the hilt, curving and Steve pulls back, fucks into him again. 

Steve’s other hand is slowly jacking him off, touch light and teasing. Bucky grunts and whines when one finger becomes two, the stretch making his toes curl against the linoleum.

Then Steve’s finger brush against something, it makes his cock jump and knees wobble. Bucky holds himself up, his metal arm wrapped around Steve’s waist. 

“That feel good?”

Steve’s speaking against the shell of his ear, voice gravelly and dirty as he stretches the vowels. Bucky hums his agreement, nosing against the side of Steve’s neck, against the thundering pulse there. 

Steve lets his fingers graze that spot inside on every thrust. Bucky spreads his legs, humping against the solid grip Steve has on his cock, unrestrained by the sounds he is making. He’s learned that Steve likes the noises he makes after he jerked Bucky off on the couch whispering _let me hear you_ in his ear while he did it.

He comes while Steve murmurs encouragements into his ear, his spunk sliding over Steve’s stomach, marking him for a brief moment before the water washes away all evidence of him.

He jerks Steve off the way Bucky now knows he likes, biting down on one of Steve’s nipples. Steve keeps a proprietary hand on his ass, his fingers sinking into the muscles when he comes. Bucky hopes that it will bruise, leaving a mark behind. 

Slowly Bucky acclimatises himself to life at the Tower and the Avengers get used to his presence. He wonders how much of it is Steve’s influence, his endless cajoling, and pleading puppydog eyes. 

He even sometimes gets invited to the common room with everyone else. Like tonight. Because there is a party. Even when Tony claims that it’s not a party because there are not enough people and that it’s more of a glorified team dinner. There are people with drinks. They are mingling. With nibbles. To Bucky, it is a party. 

He tries to stick close to Steve and hide behind the bottle of beer that does nothing for him, feeling sorry for himself. At least the Winter Soldier didn’t have to attend parties. If the Winter Soldier had to meet new people he would have most likely been there to kill them.

He shouldn’t think about killing. He eats another small cocktail hotdog. It’s very unsatisfying. 

Natasha winks at Steve as she guides a new woman towards them. She’s blond and slender with a kind smile, and Steve seems to know her. 

“Sharon, hi!”

Steve smiles that cute, innocent smile which always managed to get him a free slice of pie at the diner down the street, and Bucky wonders how he remembers that. The waitresses had a soft spot for him, probably. 

He learns that Sharon used to be a SHIELD agent, now CIA. She was there when Insight went down. She used to live next door to Steve. Pretended to be a nurse. 

She’s pretty and funny and very competent. And Bucky hates her a little bit. _A lot_. But he knows that she is what Steve needs and deserves. Steve deserves more than just awkward fumblings with a half-formed human, with a wrecked body and fried brain. 

He edges out of the party slowly, making his way from the center, from all the Avengers to the outside, nodding to Dr. Cho as he slips out the door.

He is filled with fear and dread and running out of time. It’s ice over his chest, flash frozen and always in pain. He isn’t ready, there are still so many things that he wants to feel, wants to know. Memories that have not yet been made, not saved into his mind for the lonely future ahead. 

Steve comes to find him, not even an hour later. He’s sitting in the dark of their living room, wrapped in his blanket, looking out into the glittering night of New York. So alien, and yet something in the sea of light speaks to him, calls to him like a beacon like this is the place he is supposed to be.

Bucky pulls Steve into the couch, into him inside the blanket. It’s the first time he has been demanding, has made the first move but he knows that this might be the last chance he gets. It’s dark and safe, and Steve’s breath smells like Stark’s overpriced bourbon. It reminds him of something. A cold tent. Sitting around a fire, passing a bottle around. Faceless, nameless soldiers.

Steve smiles against him, wide palms pulling Bucky’s body tight against his own. Steve is smiling, happy.

“If I knew this was waiting for me I would have left the party a lot sooner.”

Bucky wants to kiss that smile so he does. It’s sweet under his mouth and then Steve opens his mouth and kisses back, turning more heated. 

They rut against each other on the couch, and Bucky knows that it would be easy to just reach down and pull out Steve’s cock, get him off. Steve’s hand is already sliding down and over his ribs. But Bucky needs more, he wants more, just this once. 

“I want you in me.”

Steve groans into his neck, almost like it’s all he’s been waiting to hear. He hauls Bucky off the couch and out from under the blankets. They stumble into Steve’s bedroom. Buttons of Steve’s shirt pinging against the wall of the hallway as Bucky gets fed up of trying to unbutton the uncooperative fabric. 

The buttons are not the only casualty. Bucky is certain that his trousers are no longer in wearable condition and there was that telltale rip of fabric when he was tearing Steve’s briefs off. They end up on the bed, the covers rumpled and pillows pushed around to make room. Steve makes these little eager noises in the back of his throat, guiding Bucky’s metal hand over his chest and Bucky thumbs the peaked nipple. Steve sighs into his mouth, blissed out and awed.

Steve settles on his knees, Bucky’s legs thrown over his thighs. He shoves a few pillows under Bucky’s hips, arranging his legs on the bed. It’s vulnerable and exposed, and Bucky moves his hands to cover Steve’s on his legs, the plates in his metal arm shifting nervously. 

“Hey, hey, we don’t gotta to do this.”

But they do, he’s running out of time. Eventually, Steve will leave and then he won’t have the memory to keep. 

“Just kiss me.”

And Steve does, sliding up and over his chest, covering Bucky’s body with his own, their cocks sliding together, slick from sweat and precome. 

Steve settles back between his legs, his hands rubbing down Bucky’s flanks and over the muscles of his thighs. He licks Bucky’s cock, sucking on the head, tongue teasing the frenulum. The feeling is overwhelming and Bucky fights the urge to come, his stomach spasming, toes curling around the fabric of Steve’s duvet. Steve just hums, pushing to take him deeper. 

Bucky stops fighting when Steve presses his nose to the thatch of hair at the base of his cock. He can feel the muscles of Steve’s throat working over the head, squeezing and beckoning. He comes yelling Steve’s name, his head pressed into the mattress, eyes seeing nothing but blackness. 

Steve smiles, sly and mischievous, his mouth moving over Bucky’s oversensitive, spent cock to his balls and to the tender skin behind. Bucky can’t identify the noise he makes when Steve licks a fat stripe over his asshole. 

Slowly, torturously slowly, Steve’s tongue works around the tight ring of muscle until Bucky is a quivering wreck, begging and moaning in all the languages he knows. Then Steve lick’s inside of him, pushing against the resistance of his body. Steve shoves his legs up, knees to chest, pushing his tongue deeper. It makes Bucky pant and keen like he’s dying. Steve’s running his thumb over the rim, slick with saliva and sensitive to the touch. 

The feel of Steve’s fingers in his ass is familiar. The lube is slicker than the conditioner in the shower and Steve is quick to find that spot again, making Bucky see stars. His cock leaks a trail over his stomach, twitching, hard again.

“You want it, Sweetheart?”

Bucky groans at the endearment, flushing hot with embarrassment and desire, but he nods none the less. 

Steve slicks himself up and presses against Bucky’s hole, the slick stretched out rim yielding to the pressure. He feels huge even after the fingers and tongue. Steve is above him, around him, inside his body. Bucky holds on to him with the kind of desperation he only vaguely remembers. A feeling of reaching out, of shouting Steve’s name, of a cold wind around him.

But Steve is within his reach, is warm around him, is calling his name, fervently, reverently. 

He is holding Bucky’s thighs against his sides, fucking into him with sure strokes, lips hovering over Bucky’s, not touching, not yet.

“Oh, Buck you feel so good.”

And Bucky can only nod, hoping that his face is adequate in showing Steve how much this means to him, how good he feels, how complete. 

He comes again with Steve buried to the hilt inside of him, jerking and throbbing as he comes. Bucky holds him close as long as he can, not letting Steve pull out until they both feel cold and sticky and disgusting. 

Bucky goes to his room to get his sweatpants and a t-shirt. Maybe they can order some late night takeout, but Steve is already asleep when he returns, his face smushed into the pillows, softly snoring. 

He stands on the door for a long time, looking at Steve’s sleeping form. He wants nothing more than to climb into the bed and curl under one of Steve’s arms, but Bucky knows that he has already taken too much. So he turns and returns to his own room, slipping under the undisturbed covers in the dark.

He dreams of a train. A wind that rushes past him with such a force that it takes his breath; takes his voice and he is silent in the void, silent when he falls. Steve’s face watching him, disappearing into the white.

Bucky jerks awake, sheets twisted around his legs and the cotton of his t-shirt glued to his back by cold sweat. 

He is in Steve’s room before he even realizes he’s moved, watching Steve’s bleary-eyed surprise. 

“Bucky, Buck, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t know how to explain, how to find the words in his cheese grater of a brain. How to describe the intangible feelings of loss and fear that lived somewhere deep inside of him that even Hydra hadn’t been able to burn them out. Instead, he crawls into Steve’s bed, pushes himself against Steve’s body like the needy, worthless animal that he is.

Steve cradles his face, palms over his hair, his big fingers rubbing Bucky’s scalp. Bucky knows he is not supposed to ask. Not supposed to want, but he does. He wants so much.

“Please don’t leave me.”

He is sobbing, tears and snot and saliva against Steve’s shirt, messy and disgusting. Steve should push him away, but instead, he pulls Bucky closer, holding the back of his head and spreading his palm over the wide expanse of his back, rubbing the thick and ropy scars there. 

“Of course I won’t Bucky, I’m never gonna leave you.”

Steve rocks him, his face pressed into his chest. It’s safe in his arms, in the dark. Small, gentle kisses peppered on the top of his head, Steve’s voice muffled into his hair. 

“It’s you and me, jerk. ‘till the end of the line, remember?”

Bucky kisses him then, it’s wet and probably quite disgusting, but Steve opens his lips easily to the kiss, let’s Bucky plunder his mouth with desperation and need. Tries to chase his lips when Steve pulls back, his fingers cradling the back of his head and his jaw.

“You do remember, right?”

Steve’s eyes are cautious, questioning, and Bucky feels his stomach sinking.

“Remember what?”

“This. Us. What we were to each other?”

 _Best friends since childhood_ echoes in his head, faint sense memories of cold, small houses, overcrowded and drafty. 

“You were my friend…?”

Bucky tries, but Steve still looks unhappy, his eyes pinched. He is pulling away and the ice spreads over Bucky. He can’t lose this, not yet. Not now.

“Steve, Steve, please don’t leave me.”

He tries to hold onto Steve’s arms, tries to pull him back, tries to explain.

“I’m sorry I want this.”

He manages to worm his way back against Steve’s chest, to wrap his arms tightly around Steve's body. Capture his feet between Bucky’s own. Just in case.

“I’m sorry I want you. Like this.”

Steve huffs against his forehead almost as if in defeat, the breath moving few strands of hair away from Bucky’s face. 

“You always did.”

He won’t look at Bucky in the eye, resting his chin on Bucky’s head, cradling him against the wide expanse of Steve’s chest. It’s comforting and strangely familiar. 

“This is what we were to each other. In Brooklyn and in the cold tents in Europe. I would never leave you Bucky. You were my everything.”

Bucky whimpers at the past tense, but Steve guides his face up, looking straight into Bucky’s eyes. It was that specific shade of cornflower blue that he had never been able to forget. He never knew what it had been to him, not until the man on the bridge shattered everything he understood about his world.

Steve smiles at him, still tinged with sadness, but sure and strong.

“You are my everything. You will always be my everything.”

Bucky is silent for a long time, cataloguing that familiar face. Wanting to force himself to remember, wanting to let the certainty and the wonder sink into his bones.

“So we can have this? With… you know...”

He angles his hips up, rutting, and it makes Steve laugh, gentle and soft. The mood feels lighter, the ice in Bucky’s chest thawing bit by bit.

“Yeah, we can have this.”

Steve leans into him, kissing him softly, smiling. 

“With kissing.”

His hands slide down Bucky’s back, over the swell of his ass, grabbing onto the muscles and pulling him firmly against Steve’s crotch. 

“With all the sex you want.”

Bucky groans at the feel of Steve’s hardening cock against his own, but the frantic passion of their previous encounters is missing.

“We can even get married. That’s pretty cool about the future.”

“We can get married?!”

Steve nods, smiling. There is something soft in his eyes, a tightness removed. Bucky feels like he is floating.

“We should do that.”

Steve laughs, it’s a warm sound and it reverberates from his chest and into Bucky’s body. 

“Sure, Bucky, we can do that. Just don’t let Tony plan the party.”

They don’t. 

Instead they let Pepper plan the party. It’s intimate and small and stylish on the roof garden of the Tower. 

Natasha and Clint hold hands, and Bucky thinks he can spot something soft around her eyes for the first time. Thor is loud and spins Jane around the dance floor until she can barely stand. Tony complains that he was not allowed to plan the party until Pepper pinches his arm and takes him to the dance floor, where he looks at her with stupid adoration. Sam and Sharon sneak off too early for propriety. 

Bucky and Steve stay on the roof long after everyone else has left, dancing slowly and watching the lights of New York slowly blink out as the sun rises around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Come and say hi! on my [tumblr](http://claudia-flies.tumblr.com/).


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